Ascension

The Ascension group was a team of Nazi German scientists that were hired by the Soviet Union to recycle their knowledge and help them with their scientific programs such as the race to the moon, their space project, and biological weaponry. Assembled in the aftermath of World War II, the group was dangerous to the United States and in 1963 they were terminated by the CIA.

History
Nazi Germany's scientists who had worked on the development of nuclear weapons during World War II were left without employment in the aftermath of Germany's defeat by the Allied Powers. Many were sought after by the United States and the Western Allies to keep up their nuclear program in the showdown against the Soviet Union, who were taking over Eastern Europe in the form of communist puppet governments. In a project begun by General Nikita Dragovich after the war's end in 1945, the USSR began to offer clemency and rewards for German scientists that would help them with their scientific projects, recycling their knowledge.

It was Dragovich's plan to use them to help with Project Nova, a plan to activate sleeper cells in the USA to trigger chemical attacks that would win the Cold War for the Russians. But some of the scientists were put to use in the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Uzbekistan SSR, helping with the Soviet space program. The CIA, the United States' intelligence agency, began Operation Flashpoint to rip the heart out of the Soviet space program in November 1963, with the goal of shooting down two Soyuz rockets over the cosmodrome, as well as eliminating the Ascension group and Dragovich. The Americans succeeded in destroying one rocket and killing many of the scientists, and several moved to other facilities. Quite a few more were killed in the American assault on Rebirth Island in February 1968, and soon after the program ended.